The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-04-14
REV. R.TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun.
DAY SERMON
Subject; "A Live Church,

and the last, mhich ,ctts dead, and is alive
-Revelatlon, H., s.
Smyrna was great city Of the ancients,
bounded on thre. sides by mountains. II was
the central emporium of the Levantine trade.
In that prosperous and brilliant city there
was Christian Church established After II
had existed for while, IL was rocked down
Ivy nm earthquake 1t was rebuilt Then it
was consumed by conHagration that swept
over the entire city That Church went
through fire, and trouble and disaster, but
kept on to great spiritual prosperity. The
fact was, that Church had the grace Of God,
an ever active principle, Had it been other
wise, all the grandeur Of architecture and all
the pomp Of surroundings would only have
hecn the ornament of death-the garlands Of
colfin the plumes of a hearse,
1t may be profitable to consider what are
the elements of live Church.
| remark in the first place, that one char
acteristic of such a Church is punctuality in
meeting its engagements. All ecclesiastical
institutions have financial relations, and they
ought to meet their obligations Just as Ger
tainly as men meet their obligations at the
bank. When Church Of God is not as faithful
in its promises as the Bank of England, it
ceases to be Church Of God 1t ought to be
understood that prayers cannot paint q
Church, and prayers cannot pay the winters
coal bill, and prayers cannot meet the ins,ir-
ance and that, while prayers can do q
thousand things, there are a thousand
things that prayers cannot do. Prayer
Tor any particular Church will never
reach heaven high unless it goes down
pocket deep. In my Church at the West,
there was man Of comfortable means, who
used to pray for his pastor in such elongated
style that he became nuisance to the prayer
meeting: asking God, in a prayer that was
almost without ceasing, that the pastor might
be blessed in his baskc, and in his store, while
the fact was he never paid Anything II we
pray for tie advancement of the Church, and
do not out of our means contribute for its ad-
vancement, our prayer is only mockery. Let
the Church of God then meet its obligations
on the outside, and let the members Of every
congregation meet the obligations on the In
side, and the Church will be financially pros
Porous
Let me say, also, that there must be punctu-
ality in the attendance on the house of the
Lord. If the service begins at half past ten
in the morning, the regular congregation of
live church will not come at a quarter to
eleven. If the service is to begin at half past
seven in the evening the regular congrega-
tion of live church will not come at a
quarter to eight. In sonic churches have
noticed the people are always tardy. There
are some people who are always late They
were born too late, and the probability is they
will die too late. The rustling of dresses up
the aisle, aud the slamming of doors, and
the treading of heavy feet, is poor
inspiration for minister 1t requires great
abstraction in a pastors mind to proceed with
the preliminary exercises of the Church when
one-half of the audience seated are looking
around to see the other half come in. Such
difference of attendance upon the house
of God may be difference of time-pieces
but the live Church, of which am speaking
ought to go by railroad time, and that /
| pretty well understood in all our communities
There is one hymn that ought to be sung in !
| great many Christian families on Sabbath
| morning:
early, my God, without delay,
haste to seek Thy face
Another characteristic of live church il
the fact that all the people participate in the
exercises. A stranger can tell by the way the
first tune starts whether there is any life
| there. A church that does not sing is dead
! church. 1t is awful to find a cold drizzle of
music coming down from the organ loft
while all the people beneath sit in silence
| When tune wanders around, lonely and un.
J befriended, and is finally lost amid the arches
! because the people do not join in it, there is
not much melody made unto the Lord. In
Heaven they all sing, though some there
cannot sing half as well as Others.
The Methodist Church has sung all around
the world, and gone from conquest te
conquest, among other things because it is a
singing church; and any Christian church or
ganization that with enthusiasm performs thi.
part of its duty will go on from triumph to
triumph. A church of God that can sing car
do anything that ought to be done. We 20
| forth into this holy war with the Bible in one
hand and hymn-book in the other. Oh! "
who used to sing the praises of the Lord anc
have got out OF the habit, take your harp.
down from the willows. l am glad to know
| that, as church, We are making advance
ment i'll this respect. When came to be YOU
pastor we had an excellent choir in the little
chapel. and they sang very sweetly to us Sab
| bath by Sabbath but ever and anon there wa.
trouble, for you know that the chors in the
United States are the Waterloos where the
great battles go on. One Sunday they vii
sing like angels, and the next Sunday they
will be mad, ana will not sing at all We re
solved to settle all the difficulties, and hav,
one skilful man at the organ, and one mar
to do the work of precentor: and now, from
Sabbath to Sabbath, the song comes up lik,
the voice OF mighty thunderings.
:" Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God;
But children of the Heavenly King
Should speak their joys abroad"
On the way to triumph that never ends, an
| pleasures that never die-sing!
Another characteristic of live church is
fourishing Sabbath-school. 1t is too late il
the history Of the Christian Church to argu
the benefit of such an institution. The Sab
bath-school is not supplement- to the Church
it is its right arm. But you say there ar
dead churches that have Sabbath-schools
Yes, but the Sabbath-schools are dead, too
1t is dead mother holding in her arms
dead child. But when superintendent, am
teachers, and scholars come on Sabbath after
moons together, their faces glowing with in
terest and enthusiasm, and their songs ar
heard all through the exercises, and at tn
close they go away feeling that they hav
been on the Mount of Transfguration-tha
is a live school, and it is characteristic of
live Church. There is only one thing hav
against the Sabbath-schools of this country
and that is, they are too respectable. w
gather into our schools the childre
and the educated; but alas for tn
great multitude Of the children of tn
abandoned and the lost A few of them ar
gathered into our Sabbath-s schools; but wha
about the 10000 destitute children of New
York, and the score of thousands of des
titute children of Brooklyn, around whom
are thrown no benign, and heavenly, an
Christian infiuencesi 1t is tremendous ques
tion, what is too become of the destitute CHI
dren of these citiesi We must act on ther
or they will act on lis. We will either Chri,
tianize them, or they will heatheniza us. 1t
question not more for the Christian tha
for the philanthropist and the statesmen
Obi if we conld have. all these suffel
ing little ones gathered together, whs
scene Of hunger, and wretchednes
and rags, and sin, and trouble. al
darkneSsl II wa could see those httl
feet on the broad road to death, whic
through Christian charity ought to
pressing the narrow path of life; ii we coul
bear those voices in blasphemy, which ougl
to he singing the praises of God; If we coul
see those little hearts, which at that age ougt
not to be soiled with one unclean thought, bt
coming the sewers for every abomination;
we could see those suffering little ones, sacr
feed on the altar of every iniquitou
passion and baptized with fire from th
lava of the pit, we would recoil, cryin
out: "Avaunt, thou dream of hellln The
are not always going to be children. The
are coming up to be the men and women
this country. That spark of iniauity tbs
might now be put out wltb-one drop OF u
water of life, will become the confagration {
every green thing that God ever planted
the soul That which ought to have been
temple of the Holy Ghost will become
Scared and blasted ruin-every light quenche
and every altar in the dust. That petty THE
who slips into your store and takes yard {
cloth from your counter, will become Il
highwayman of the forest, or the burglar ,
midnight, picking the lock of your money sal